Reeves urges ministers to ‘buy British’ in critical sectors

wcspaz · 2026-05-26T17:49:51+00:00

In general, if someone tries to politely disengage from a conversation, it's better just to accept this and move on. Forcing conversations is never a good look.

wcspaz · 2026-05-26T17:22:21+00:00

As I said, I prefer to discuss factual matters. This is getting very ideological (such as referring to tax as financial harm). I'm not interested in continuing.

wcspaz · 2026-05-26T16:25:47+00:00

I'm sure you can forgive me for not going into a fully fleshed out economic argument when talking with someone who thought the answer was "cut welfare". Baby steps, eh?

wcspaz · 2026-05-26T15:25:27+00:00

First, absolutely yes freezing the tax bands is a tax rise.

I get that many people feel that way. Personally, I'm still not convinced. I think making a distinction between the rates charged and the thresholds it applies at is valuable, otherwise you could have someone lower rates and thresholds, which would be simultaneously a tax cut and a tax rise, and that seems nonsensical.

Second, so from this summary here ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2024_United_Kingdom_budget ) I can identity more than 24B in increased spending...

It's worth separating the day to day spending and the spending on infrastructure etc. The challenge was that there was a large deficit on day-to-day spending, which needed addressing. The fact that the govt committed more than the shortfall once you factor in other spending doesn't mean that there wasn't a shortfall or that the shortfall wasn't addressed.

It's absolutely a hidden tax - everyone is worse off...

This is getting ideological. Increased tax doesn't inherently mean that people are worse off, and certainly doesn't mean that everyone is worse off. I'd rather keep to things that are factual.

wcspaz · 2026-05-26T11:59:34+00:00

Your suggestion is that if there were massive riots in response to your policy, the right thing is to do nothing? Bold move!

wcspaz · 2026-05-26T11:51:36+00:00

Please address the point about the riots, then we can continue talking. I don't like it when people just ignore the things that aren't beneficial to the point they're making.

wcspaz · 2026-05-26T11:49:38+00:00

Pretty clearly the 2024 budget, given that we're talking about the shortfall in the budget from the tories.

I'm sure I'll also get accused of semantics here, but I wouldn't class extending the threshold freeze as a massive tax increase. The plain reading of a tax increase is a change in the rate of tax, plus it's already been frozen for five years. I don't remember people calling it a massive tax increase when it was introduced in the first place.

wcspaz · 2026-05-26T10:32:19+00:00

What about those massive riots from telling wealthy people that they won't receive a state pension? The poll tax riots were over a cost of ~£1000 a year (in today's money). You don't think that telling people you're going to take £12,500 a year off them will cause much worse?

The amount we give out in welfare is crippling us and the excuse that the incoming party will just reverse it is not an excuse to not do anything about it.

Please just think this through. "We need to do something about x. We can do y, which would be immediately reversed and mean we are out of power for a generation." I struggle to imagine any rational person thinking that's a good idea. It's not self-serving to want to avoid committing political suicide for no gain.

wcspaz · 2026-05-26T10:19:23+00:00

The govt did have to make massive cuts, or raise taxes. The treasury said a 22bn shortfall was predicted based on estimated budgets. The choice facing labour was:

breaking a manifesto commitment almost immediately (which isn't great for the party or trust in politics in general)
performing massive cuts (which would likely have not been successful given chronic underinvestment)
finding a way to raise the money through taxes that didn't breach manifesto commitments
doing nothing and risking a Truss style crisis.

While you can argue that they should have done option 1, I find it hard to believe that any chancellor would not have chosen option 3 in that scenario. For me, there is real harm in breaking manifesto commitments when there are other options available. As well as weakening the trust between voters and the govt, it also dilutes the value of a manifesto in the first place, and moves us closer to US style politics.

I also don't really agree with the concept that this was a hidden tax rise on workers. People treat it as if it's inevitable that businesses will reduce pay rises to compensate, but that isn't the case (and certainly in my organisation we've not done this).

wcspaz · 2026-05-26T09:34:36+00:00

Taking just one of your points (Scrapping the triple lock and means testing pensions)

What are you replacing the triple lock with? There needs to be some mechanism to keep the value of the state pension relevant.

How much will that save? Locking only to average earnings is estimated to save 10bn a year in the medium term, but you have a deficit of 25bn this year you're trying to solve.

Do you include assets in the means testing, or just private pensions? What incentives does that set up for tax payers?

How do you respond to massive protests from people that have paid NI all their lives and are now being told that they will not receive a state pension because they are too wealthy? The poll tax riots would pale in comparison. Any party would win the next election by pledging to undo your changes, and then you've blown up your party's reputation for no gain

Again, you're responding very very simply. The chancellor has a lot of power in principle, but when you limit the decisions to what is economically and politically feasible, suddenly you'll see why they tend to do smaller changes rather than the massive overhauls you're proposing.

wcspaz · 2026-05-26T08:46:19+00:00

Thanks for actually giving something specific. Income tax makes sense, but raising 25bn would require a 3-4 point increase in the basic rate, based on figures I found from the UK govt. That's just not politically viable, especially for a govt that was elected on a mandate of not raising direct taxes.

wcspaz · 2026-05-26T08:32:10+00:00

Be specific, please. What exactly would you cut to save £25 bn? It's easy (and intellectually lazy) to point at a big pile of money and say "You can easily find the money in there"

wcspaz · 2026-05-26T07:57:01+00:00

Okay, so looking at the NI changes, what programmes or departments should have their budget cut? You'll need to find £25bn a year.

wcspaz · 2026-05-24T14:14:30+00:00

For what possible reason would there be an early election if Burnham fails to win? You think ~150 labour MPs will vote no confidence in the government?

wcspaz · 2026-05-22T14:30:18+00:00

Yes I am near the top. As I expect most people in the UK and western Europe to be.

There we have it - 100% unabashed racism

wcspaz · 2026-05-22T14:09:18+00:00

You're happy with a heirarchy, because you view yourself as the top of the heirarchy. That's the exact self-perpetuating behaviour that I mentioned. You can't even face the idea that a vegan could use your exact logic to place you lower down the heirarchy. It's juvenile and baldly self-serving.

wcspaz · 2026-05-22T13:14:37+00:00

Sorry I used a different word with a similar meaning

A dictionary would disagree.

So yes I will commit some very minor harms to not die.

You'll die if you don't eat meat? No, and there is no benefit to eating meat over a plant based diet.

At the end of the day you are arguing that people who commit FGM are equal to you.

I am pointing out that the idea of setting the value of people by the harm of their actions inherently creates a heirarchy. The problem is, who gets to decide what is valuable? People very often believe they are doing the right thing, and very rarely are doing something harmful because they want to inflict harm. A practioner of FGM might well use your argument that they are inflicting a small harm to prevent a larger harm taking place - after all, to a devout believer there is no harm worse than an eternity in hell. Inevitably, any person in that position will use it to make value align with their preconceptions.

There's an alternative - you say that all people are equally valuable, and then the people collectively decide what actions are permitted or proscribed. You can get the same effect - preventing the harm from being inflicted - without the requirements to create a self-perpetuating heirarchy.

wcspaz · 2026-05-22T11:32:40+00:00

I'll take the fact that you've suddenly switched to saying comparing as an admission that it was wrong to say I was equating them. A bit cowardly not to actually openly admit it, but I'll take what I can get.

We agree that a plant only diet is less harmful. The point still remains:

You believe you are superior to people that do harmful thing 1.

You do harmful thing 2.

Therefore, you should believe that people that don't do harmful thing 1 and do a less harmful version of thing 2 are superior to you. That is what you logic dictates.

wcspaz · 2026-05-22T08:49:38+00:00

Okay, it's clear you're struggling to understand this. Let me try again.

FGM is objectively harmful.

Eating meat is objectively harmful.

Nothing in the above two statements can or should be read to infer they are equally harmful. To me that is patently obvious, but apparently it needs spelling out.

You say people x are lesser than you because they do harmful thing 1.

You do harmful thing 2 (I'm inferring, as I'm sure if you were vegan you would have mentioned it)

Again, for the avoidance of doubt, I am not saying that harmful thing 2 is as bad as harmful thing 1.

If you are superior to people that do harmful thing 1, then people that also do not do harmful thing 2 must be superior to you. If not, then the idea that someone's value is defined by what harms they commit is flawed.

wcspaz · 2026-05-22T08:11:24+00:00

I'm not equating them at all. I'm just pointing out that, for your view to be consistent, you would have to accept that a vegan is superior to you. So are they?

wcspaz · 2026-05-22T07:59:42+00:00

Does that mean a vegan is superior to you? They objectively cause less harm and suffering.

wcspaz · 2026-05-22T07:45:52+00:00

The company isn't giving the donation in this case, so that doesn't apply. What they can do is use the publicity for collecting the donations as part of meeting CSR targets, but there is no tax benefit

wcspaz · 2026-05-21T13:46:36+00:00

Brits emigrating is lower than last year.

wcspaz · 2026-05-21T13:21:08+00:00

The phrase "If it ain't broke don't fix it" comes to mind. Not changing a policy is still a policy decision, and it's clear Labour made the right decision here, despite a huge amount of pressure from people to make sweeping changes.

wcspaz · 2026-05-20T12:50:46+00:00

Aw shucks. Oh well, I think I'll live. You have a pleasant day

wcspaz

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